


Dinner With My Dad

by ProblemWithTrouble



Series: Prompts [16]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: M/M, No appearance by lars, promise it's just a ruse Hermann uses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 06:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20755841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProblemWithTrouble/pseuds/ProblemWithTrouble
Summary: “Why would I want to have dinner with you and your dad?”“He recently published his op-ed about your article on kaiju cells and I thought your hatred of him would outweigh your present irritation with me,” Hermann said, feeling his grasp on his own sanity slipping. His father was not coming to Hong Kong. The man wouldn’t be leaving continental Europe anytime soon unless it was on a spaceship to colonize space.Newt is giving Hermann the silent treatment and Hermann decides to invite him along for dinner with his dad so that Newt can yell at Lars in person. Only problem being that Lars is on the other side of the world.





	Dinner With My Dad

Hermann was eating lunch alone in the mess as he was being forced to grow accustomed to. It was still the middle of the lunch though and he couldn’t dine in peace. Tendo sat down across from him and before he had taken a bite asked, “Where’s your other half?”

“I don’t have an ‘other half’” Hermann said, stabbing at his lunch. 

“Ah, trouble in paradise. What’d you do?”

“I didn’t do anything except point out to him the absurdity of his kaiju cloning theory. He didn’t take kindly to it and now, like a child, he isn’t speaking to me.” Hermann might have crossed the line when he had been trying to get his point across but Newt knew he didn’t mean it. Hermann thought the world of Newt and his intelligence; he’d told him that plenty of times. There was no reason for him to have gotten as upset as he did.

“Right. And there’s that old saying: why apologize when you can be miserable and alone.”

“I am not miserable.” 

“Sure. That’s why you haven’t actually eaten any of your lunch.”

Hermann took a pointed bite of his macaroni and cheese while looking directly at Tendo who rolled his eyes and went back to his own lunch. They finished their food in silence. Hermann had been surrounded by a lot of silence recently. 

Newt hadn’t spoken to Hermann in three days and while Hermann wanted to pretend that he had never been happier a part of him mourned the loss of Newton’s chatter. It was something he could count on but even when he asked Newton for his opinion he was silent, pretending not to have heard Hermann. He wouldn’t even cross into Hermann’s side to borrow his calculator, instead leaving for nearly an hour to go search for one elsewhere. 

When Hermann returned to the lab from lunch he considered what Tendo had said and decided that enough was enough. He needed to apologize for hurting Newton’s feelings so that they could go back to the way things should be. “Newton,” he said as he crossed the yellow line into Newt’s side of the lab. 

Newt made no indication that he had heard Hermann but he didn’t have earbuds in so Hermann continued. 

“I just wanted to say…” Hermann started, then hesitated. Was Newton really going to care about his apology? He missed their friendship so much it was making him desperate. “My father is coming to town for dinner and I wanted to extend the offer to join us.”

That caught Newton’s attention and he looked up at Hermann for the first time in days. “Why would I want that?”

“He recently published his op-ed about your article on kaiju cells and I thought your hatred of him would outweigh your present irritation with me,” Hermann said, feeling his grasp on his own sanity slipping. His father was not coming to Hong Kong. The man wouldn’t be leaving continental Europe anytime soon unless it was on a spaceship to colonize space.

Newt thought about it for a minute before he nodded. “It does. What time?”

“I will pick you up from your room at six to leave. The restaurant does require a jacket, I assume you still have at least one suit jacket left?”

“Tomorrow at six,” Newt said with a tight smile. 

Hermann went back to his desk to keep working and hopefully find a way out of the mess he had just talked himself into.

* * *

The next night Hermann still hadn’t come up with a solution, though he had been able to swing a last minute reservation for three at a restaurant that did have a jacket policy. Digging himself deeper into the lie seemed the only way to go even when he knocked on Newton’s door and the man had changed into a suit jacket and trousers but hadn’t changed the white button up shirt that he had been wearing earlier, and might have been wearing the day before. 

“Are you ready to go?” 

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Hermann nodded and they walked in silence to the cab that was waiting for them just beyond the Shatterdome fence. 

“You’re not gonna get all pissy if I yell in the fancy restaurant are you?” Newt asked after they had buckled their seatbelts and Hermann had given the address to the driver. 

Hermann couldn’t help hesitating for a second but settled on not starting a fight until the last possible second. “Of course not. I invited you knowing full well how you would act when presented with my father and his...habits.”

Newt nodded. “Good.” 

Hermann stared out the window of the cab and tried not to think about his last cab ride with Newt when they had gone into the city together and Newt had talked about how much fun he’d had on their day out. There was no use in comparing the two moments in time. It wouldn’t do anyone any good. 

When they pulled up to the restaurant Hermann felt the confession die in his throat as Newt held the door open for him. And again when they were sat and handed menus. 

Twenty minutes later Hermann had insisted that they order and that if Lars was late, it wasn’t their fault. “Is your _dad_ going to stand us up?”

“It wouldn't be the first time,” Hermann said, skating around the truth and trying to drown his guilt in the very nice wine Newt had picked out. For someone who insisted on acting the way he did, he had an excellent pallet. 

“Pft, dick,” Newt said. Dinner was still quiet but silence was broken every few minutes by one of them making a comment about Lars’s absence or the food. Hermann tried to keep his own condemnations of his father light; Lars had a lot to be blamed for but this wasn’t one of those things. 

Hermann picked up the bill for both of them when dinner was over. His salary was just as small as Newton’s but there was something to be said about coming from money. Not to mention Sallie Mae had called Newton just the week before asking for money before he transferred them to Pentecost’s office. The valet called them another cab to pick them up and they stood in silence again waiting. 

“You know what, fuck that guy. He’s got a twitter I’ll tweet at him.”

“Newton, no!” Hermann yelled, panic suddenly over taking him. 

Newt’s phone was already out. “Fuck I’ve gotta unblock him before I can at him,” Newt said, glaring down at his phone. 

“I’m serious. Don’t.” 

“I won’t even say he stood us up. I’ll just call him a chicken shit bitch,” Newt said, his eyes never leaving his phone. 

Hermann grabbed it out of his hands and hid it behind his back. 

“Dude, what are you like five? Give me my phone back.” 

“Not until you promise you won’t mention tonight to anyone, including tweeting at my father.”

“Fine. I’ll send him an actual email. Now give me my phone.”

“No.”

“Dude, he’s the one who said he was coming and then didn’t. He deserves a little shit.” Newt made a grab at Hermann’s arm but he just took a step back to avoid him. 

“He didn’t.”

“What?”

Their cab pulled up and Hermann climbed in gratefully with a nod to the valet who had been pretending not to watch their scuffle. 

Once they were in Hermann handed the phone back to Newt as he gave the address of the Shatterdome. 

“I repeat: what?” Newt hissed at him 

“I made it up.”

“You what?” Newt squawked at him. So much for being quiet.

Hermann stared down at his hands, running his thumb over the handle of his cane so he wouldn’t have to look at Newt as he spoke. “I made it all up as an excuse to get you to talk to me again. I didn’t intend to. When I tried to talk to you it just came out and you would look at me again and I had m…”

“You had what?” Newt spat at him. 

“I had missed you.”

“Did you consider an appology for being a huge fucking dick?”

“Yes, but what came out was an invitation for dinner with my father.” Hermann finally cautioned a look at Newt who was shaking his head and looking at the stained ceiling of the cab. 

“Fucking figures. You’re the worst.”

Hermann didn’t have anything to say to that so he stayed quiet. The rest of the ride was completely silent. When they got back to the Shatterdome Hermann paid the cab and followed Newt back into the building. “You didn’t have to be a dick. Either time,” Newt said as they waited for the elevator. 

“I crossed a line when we spoke about your research. I have every faith in you Newton but higher beings creating living beings in order to fight us? It’s far fetched even by your standards.”

“We’ve grown life and we aren’t anywhere near technologically advanced enough to open a rift to another part of space. Or dimension,” Newt said, he was warming up again, Hermann could tell and he worked hard to keep the relieved smile off his face. 

“If I weren’t so busy trying to save the world then maybe I’d be able to,” Hermann said, just to see Newt laugh. 

Which he did, loudly. “You asshole. If anyone could figure it out it’d be you but you don’t need to say it.”

The elevator came and they went in together. 

“I missed you too you know. Some of my best ideas come from when I’m telling you you’re wrong.”

“It’s a wonder that any good research could come from you being wrong and defending it.”

“Keep telling yourself that, maybe it’ll help you sleep at night. But now I have to tell you about what Tendo’s assistant Farah did at lunch the other day,” Newt stared before diving into an inane and meandering story about stacking various dishes and utensils almost a meter high. It didn’t end until Hermann was standing at his door. 

“Anyway, thanks for dinner,” Newt said, clapping Hermann on the arm. “And the apology. Maybe next time skip the thing with your dad.”

“Then how will you get your free dinners?” Hermann asked as Newt started to walk backwards to his own door. 

Newt winked at him. “You’ll just have to ask me on a date like a normal person.” Newt spun around when he got halfway to his own door, leaving Hermann to gawk at him like a fish. “Night, Hermann.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: "Hi! Since you are feeling the power of the writing gods lately I hope this Newmann prompt will continue to inspire you! “Fine, I made it all up for an excuse to talk to you.”"


End file.
